The sun. [volume] (Morris, Stevens County, Minn.) 1882-1895, 1887-04-21
The Lesson of the Recent Strike.

The Lesson of the Recent Strike.
The important event of the month
was the great strike--an incident which
belongs to the domain of social man.
ners in the large sense in which the
Easy Chair interprets the word. .......
The idle crowds along the wha rves in
the busy winter days were a significant
phenomenon. They h al refused to work
not because they were unju silly treated,
or were dissatisfied with their con-
tracts, but because some other men else
where were dissatisfied and had struck
They did not contemp late violence.
Their theory was tn at all men who
work for daily wages should make
common cause. and that if a shoe
maker demands more wages, which
his employer refuses to pay, all masons,
carpenters. and all other workmen in
every trade and calling should refuse
to do stroke moro of work until the
employer yields. The strike, there
fore, was in great part movement of
sympathy. But it was the cause of
cruel suffering to the mo st helpless and
innocent part of the community. The
sympathy. however, was wholly theo-
retical. The larger body of ldlers
struck work with the utmost reluctance,
and solely because they were ordered
to strike. for reasons that they did not
know. They obeyed certain leaders,
and it is certainly needful that leaders
should be very wise and disintereste
and humane who are vested with pow
er at their will to stop all the wheels
and hammers of industry, and paraIyze
the entire business activity of a great
community.
And what is it that these leaders do
when they order their followers to
abandon their work because some
workmen are dissatisfied? What they
do is this: they sit in Judgment upon a
contract between an employer and an
employee. They decide, generally.
without hearing both sides, that the
employe has been wronged; and they
endeavor by depriving the employer
of the aid of workmen to compel him
to accept their judgment by fear OF
ruin. In executing this judgment they
expose an army of employees and their
families to starvation, and hundreds
and thousands of employers to ruin.
which deprives the employees of work.
In other words, these leaders exercise
an authority which, so far as it goes,
makes them dictators of the welfare OF
the community, and this not by the
choice of the community, but by the
assent of certain part of ia small
minority-who place themselves under
the absolute control of such leaders.
The usual procedure of a strike recalls
D'Azeglio's definition of assassination
the execution of sentence pro
nounced without taial by an incompet-
ent tribunal"
The justification pleaded for this
transaction is that employers combine to
depress wages, and therefore employees
must combine to resist them. But it is
not true that as class employers thus
combine, Some employers may do so.
But every employee knows that wages
are not determined bya conspiracy OF
employers, but mainly by causes which
they cannot control. Undoubtedly the
power of great corporations is often
grossly abused, as the power of labor
organizations is often abused. TO as
sumo state of war, and to endeavor to
AUST the relations of employers and em-
ployes upon that basis, is merely stt
invite contest of endurance OF
of force, which cannot possibly set
tie the ESSENTIAL question. .........
TO use the power of great associa
tons arbitrarily to raise the price of an.
necessary of life is anarchical, because
it tends to violence and outrage. Blu
such crime does not pass unexposet
nor undenounced. In its nature, how.
ever, it does not produce an immediate,
visible effect, palpable effect and dis
turbance like strike, and therefore i
does not occupy the same space in tn
newspapers.
1t is not true, again, that the EN-
ploye pleads in vain unless he strikes
The public sympathy was plainly witt
the telegraph strike three or four year
ago, and with one of the street rail
road strikes. If an employer breaks
his word, or will pay only inadequate
wages. the public is quite as ready tt
condemn him as all employe wh'
breaks his word, or who tries to pre-
vent another man from taking wage!
with which he is satisfied. The idl'
men upon the wharves whom the EASY
Chair sees from the window are OTTER
illtreated, but in striking they art
generally the dupes of craftier men
Why should any man make himself thu
slave of another, and agree to ODE.
his command, as the children say i
play, 'unsight, unSeen! Organlza
ton is wise and necessary to secur
great results. But it should be q man
ly, intelligent, self-respecting organize
ton, not an abject servility which dc
grades manhood.
And why is an honest, hard-workin
laborer derided as "scab?" VIVA
offence has he committed3 VIVA
wrong has he done? Whom has he ir
jnred2 He has wife and family t
support by his daily toll, and he has TN
dertaken honest work at wages whc
he chooses to accept How long sine
that has been an offence in America
An offence! 1t is that very thing whic
has made America. That is essentis
Americanism. 1t is the personal liber
ty, the right of the individual, whic
governments are justly constituted t